Coca-Cola
(often abbreviated to "Coke") is a cola
drink, and is the world's most popular carbonated soft
drink. The
Coca-Cola Company's headquarters are located in Atlanta, Georgia,
where the drink was first concocted around 1884. Although Coke's inventor,
John Pemberton, was not a shrewd marketer of his drink, the ownership of
Coke eventually passed to Asa Candler, whose company remains the producer
of Coke today. Candler's successful marketing, continued by his successors
such as Robert Woodruff, established Coke as a major soft drink first in
the United
States and later around the world.

Originally
designed to be sold at soda fountains, Coca-Cola was later sold in
bottles, whose distinctive shape have become a part of the drink's
branding. Major advertising campaigns have established Coca-Cola
slogans such as "The pause that refreshes" as part of
popular culture. The formula for Coke, whose status as a trade secret has
been embellished by company lore, once contained trace amounts of cocaine,
although as health regulations were tightened, this was removed a long
time ago. Nevertheless, Coca-Cola has been criticized for its possible
negative health effects, with many urban myths surrounding it. In
addition, the commercial success of the drink has been periodically
challenged, in particular by its main rival Pepsi-Cola.
This tension reached its peak during the 1980s, at the height of the Cola
Wars, which eventually resulted in the heavily-publicised introduction of
"New Coke", intended to replace the original Coca-Cola. The
widely unpopular decision was eventually rescinded in the face of public
opposition.

The
Coca-Cola Company has on occasion introduced soft drinks under the
Coca-Cola brand name. The most famous of these is Diet Coke, which has
become a major diet cola, but others exist, such as Cherry Coke. There are
also some drinks marketed by the company but which remain unaffiliated
with Coca-Cola the drink, such as Sprite.

History

Early
years

Columbus,
Georgia druggist John Stith Pemberton invented a cocawine
called Pemberton's French Wine Coca in 1884, although it was originally
meant to be a headache medicine. He was inspired by the formidable success
of French Angelo Mariani's cocawine, Vin Mariani.

The
following year, when Atlanta and Fulton County passed Prohibition
legislation, Pemberton began to develop a non-alcoholic version of the
French Wine Coca. He named it Coca-Cola, because it included the stimulant
coca leaves from South America and was flavored using kola
nuts, a source of caffeine.
Pemberton called for 5 ounces of coca leaf per gallon of syrup. The first
sales were made at Jacob's Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 8, 1886,
and for the first eight months only an average of nine drinks were sold
each day. Pemberton ran the first advertisement
for the beverage on May 29 that year in the Atlanta Journal.

Coca-Cola
was initially sold as a patent medicine for five cents a glass. Pemberton
claimed Coca-Cola cured myriad diseases, including morphine addiction,
dyspepsia, neurasthenia, headache, and impotence.

In
1887, Pemberton sold a stake in his company to Asa Griggs Candler, who
incorporated it as the Coca Cola Corporation in 1888. In the same year,
Pemberton sold the rights a second time to three more businessmen: J.C.
Mayfield, A.O. Murphey, and E.H. Bloodworth. Meanwhile, Pemberton's son
Charley Pemberton began selling his own version of the product. Three
versions of Coca-Cola — sold by three separate businesses — were on
the market.

Under
Candler and Woodruff

In
an attempt to clarify the situation, John Pemberton declared that the name
Coca-Cola belonged to Charley, but the other two manufacturers could
continue to use the formula. So, in the summer of 1888, Candler sold his
beverage under the names Yum Yum and Koke. After both failed to catch on,
Candler set out to establish a legal claim to Coca-Cola in late 1888, in
order to force his two competitors out of the business. Candler apparently
purchased exclusive rights to the formula from John Pemberton, Margaret
Dozier, and Woolfolk Walker. However, in 1914, Dozier came forward to
claim her signature on the bill of sale had been forged, and subsequent
analysis has indicated John Pemberton's signature was most likely a
forgery as well.

In
1892, Candler incorporated a second company, The Coca-Cola Company — the
current corporation. In 1910, Candler had the earliest records of the
company burned, further obscuring its legal origins. Regardless, Candler
began aggressively marketing the product — the efficiency of this
concerted advertising campaign would not be realized until much later.
Candler pioneered several promotional techniques, such as the distribution
of vouchers for free glasses of Coca-Cola, and advertising through media
varying from soda fountain urns to wall murals (a possible ancestor of the
billboard).

Coca-Cola
advertisement, 1917

Coca-Cola
was sold in bottles for the first time on March 12, 1894. The first
bottling of Coca-Cola occurred in Vicksburg, Mississippi, at the
Biedenharn Candy Company in 1891. Its proprietor was Joseph A. Biedenharn.
The original bottles were six-ounce Hutchinson bottles manufactured by
Biedenharn and sealed with a rubber gasket. Reportedly leaky, they were
soon replaced with "crown top" bottles with straight sides, and
sealed with a metal cap; variants of this design remain in use today. The
distinctive "hobble-skirt" bottle design now associated with
Coca-Cola was introduced in 1915.

Initially,
Candler was tentative about bottling the drink, but the two entrepreneurs
who proposed the idea were so persuasive that Candler signed a contract
giving them control of the procedure. However, the loosely termed contract
proved to be problematic for the company for decades to come. Legal
matters were not helped by the decision of the bottlers to subcontract to
other companies — in effect, becoming parent bottlers. This meant that
Coca-Cola was originally sold in a wide variety of bottles, until the
introduction of the iconic, standardized "hobble-skirt" bottle
in 1916.

After
the advent of bottling, the company began taking advertising even more
seriously than it had before, hiring William D'Arcy, whose creations set
the tone for Coca-Cola advertising that his successors would follow.
D'Arcy associated Coca-Cola with typical everyday scenes of people going
about their daily business; his personal view was that "Coca-Cola
advertising should create scenes that drew people in and made them part of
the pleasant interludes of everyday life". Instead of targeting
particular population segments, D'Arcy attempted to appeal to as broad a
class of people as possible, with advertising copy such as "All
classes, ages and sexes drink Coca-Cola".

After
Candler, the next executive to have a major impact on Coke's future was
Robert Woodruff, who focused on expanding the scope of the business to the
rest of the US. A noted workaholic, Woodruff would continue to have a
major influence on the business long after his retirement until his death
in the 1980s. Woodruff inherited leadership of the company from his
father, Ernest Woodruff, who had successfully led a campaign to takeover
the company from Candler in 1919. Woodruff became President of the
Coca-Cola Company four years later.

Emphasising
quality in the production of Coca-Cola, he initiated a "Quality
Drink" campaign aimed at properly training those who served Coca-Cola
at soda fountain outlets. Woodruff was also influential in establishing
quality standards for the bottled version of Coca-Cola, which he thought
had great potential. Looking beyond the United States, he set up a foreign
department of the company in 1926, and began opening manufacturing plants
in various European and Central American countries. It was Woodruff who
assumed responsibility for designing Coca-Cola's foreign advertising
campaigns, affixing the company logo to racing
dog sleds in Canada
and Spanish bullfighting arenas. He also introduced some new forms of
distributing Coca-Cola, such as the six-pack carton, which made bulk
purchases of Coca-Cola substantially easier.

The
Coca-Cola logo is often parodied in advertisements in motion pictures This
example from the animated movie Shark Tale

In
1929, the onset of the Great Depression led to fears that sales might be
depressed for the year. However, an advertising campaign spearheaded with
the slogan "The pause that refreshes" led per capita consumption
of Coca-Cola to actually double. That same year, sales of bottled
Coca-Cola overtook those of Coca-Cola sold at soda fountains for the first
time. Throughout the Great Depression, Coca-Cola advertising continued to
be upbeat, despite the bleak economic outlook; a 1935 advertisement
depicted a man nonchalantly smiling on his way to work, presenting an
idealised view of American life at the time. The proliferation of
Coca-Cola, and a newcomer to the soft drink market, Pepsi, during this
period led to a decline in the sales of Moxie, which had outsold Coca-Cola
as recently as 1920, and continued to rival Coca-Cola's dominance of the
American market. The decision of its manufacturer to cut back on
advertising expenditure led to Moxie's eventual marginalization in the
United States.

The
Great Depression, however, also saw a setback for Coca-Cola with the
arrival of a new competitor — Pepsi. With twelve ounces a bottle instead
of the six ounces Coca-Cola sold, Pepsi turned the price difference to its
advantage with a slick radio advertising campaign which was the first use
of a jingle in advertising. "Twelve full ounces, that's a lot / Twice
as much for a nickel, too / Pepsi-Cola is the drink for you,"
encouraged price-watching consumers to switch to Pepsi, while obliquely
referring to the Coca-Cola standard of six ounces a bottle for the price
of five cents (a nickel), instead of the twelve ounces Pepsi sold at the
same price. Coming at a time of economic crisis, the campaign succeeded in
boosting Pepsi's status as a possible challenger to Coca-Cola's dominance
of the American market. From 1936 to 1938, Pepsi's profits doubled.

World
War II to the 1970s

When
the United States entered World
War II, sugar rationing in the United States meant Coca-Cola was
unable to produce drinks at full capacity. However, a deal was struck
between the US government and Coca-Cola whereby the company was exempted
from sugar rationing, while Coca-Cola supplied free drinks to the United
States Army. The US Army permitted Coca-Cola employees to enter the front
lines as "Technical Officers" where they operated Coke's system
of providing refreshments for soldiers, who welcomed the beverage as a
reminder of home. After the war, the soldiers brought home their newfound
taste for Coca-Cola, popularising the drink. A survey of soldiers after
the war indicated that veterans preferred Coca-Cola to Pepsi by an 8 to 1
ratio.

Coca-Cola
has been criticised for its decision to continue trading in Nazi Germany
(as did automobile manufacturer Ford,
owned by vocal Anti-Semite Henry Ford) long after other US companies had
relocated on moral grounds. Eventually, the difficulty of shipping
Coca-Cola concentrate to Germany and its occupied states, due to the
Allied blockades, led to the creation of a new drink (Fanta) by a
Coca-Cola employee. Fanta is still sold worldwide to this day.

Another
wartime innovation was the trademarking
of "Coke" by the Coca-Cola Company, validating it as a way of
referring to Coca-Cola. Although widely prevalent in vernacular usage, the
company had initially fought against this practice with the reasoning that
"nicknames encourage substitution". Advertising campaigns
encouraged people to "ask for 'Coca-Cola' by its full name," but
people persisted in asking simply for "Coke". In 1941, the
company resignedly began advertising Coca-Cola jointly as Coca-Cola and
Coke. In 1945, the "Coke" name was trademarked.

After
World War II, Coke began expanding worldwide. Initially having been
restricted only to North America and Western Europe, Coke was soon being
distributed in numerous other countries, especially those, such as the
Philippines, which had been occupied by the Americans during World War II.
The process was aided by the company assuming control of a number of
Coca-Cola manufacturing plants which had been established during the war
by the army, with help from the company, in order to spur distribution of
the drink to soldiers.

New
Coke stirred up a controversy when it replaced the

original
Coca-Cola in 1985. The original formula was reinstated

as
Coca-Cola Classic within a few months

New
Coke to the present

In
1985, Coca-Cola, amid much publicity, changed the formula of the drink
(although the "formula" had been "changed" a few years
before by the substitution of 1/2 of the original 100% cane sugar
sweetener with cheaper corn syrup which never provoked any public outcry).
Some authorities believe that New Coke, as the reformulated drink came to
be known, was invented specifically to respond to its commercial
competitor, Pepsi. Numerous blind taste tests suggested that more
consumers preferred the taste of Pepsi (which is believed to have more lemon
oil, less orange oil, and
uses vanillin rather than vanilla)
to Coke. In taste tests, drinkers were more likely to respond positively
to sweeter drinks, and Pepsi had the advantage over Coke because it is
much sweeter. Coca-Cola tinkered with the formula and created the new
Coke. Follow-up taste tests revealed that most consumers preferred the
taste of New Coke to both Coke and Pepsi. The reformulation was led by the
then CEO of the company, Roberto Goizueta, and the president Don Keough.

It
is unclear what part long-time company president Robert W. Woodruff played
in the reformulation. Goizueta claims that Woodruff endorsed it a few
months before his death in 1985; others have pointed out that, as the two
men were alone when the matter was discussed, Goizueta might have
misinterpreted the wishes of the dying Woodruff, who could speak only in
monosyllables. It has also been alleged that Woodruff might not have been
able to understand what Goizueta was telling him.

The
New Coke therefore came as a grievous blow to the management of The
Coca-Cola Company. It is possible that customers would not have
noticed the change if it had been made secretly or gradually, and thus
brand loyalty could have been maintained. Coca-Cola management was
unprepared, however, for the nostalgic sentiments the drink aroused in the
American public; some compared changing the Coke formula to rewriting the
American Constitution.

The
new Coca-Cola formula subsequently caused a public backlash. Consumers
began buying up and hoarding supplies of Old Coke, before it disappeared
forever. Gay Mullins, from Seattle, Washington,
founded the Old Cola Drinkers of America organization, which attempted to
sue the company, and lobbied for the formula of Old Coke to be released
into the public domain. This and other protests caused the company to
return to the old formula under the name Coca-Cola Classic on July 10,
1985. However Coca-Cola Classic is not the true old formula, as it
introduced high fructose corn syrup as a substitute to sugar. The company
was later accused of performing this volte-face as an elaborate
ruse to introduce a new product while reviving interest in the original.
Donald Keough, company president at the time, responded to the accusation
by declaring: "Some critics will say Coca-Cola made a marketing
mistake. Some cynics will say that we planned the whole thing. The truth
is we are not that dumb, and we are not that smart."

Meanwhile,
the market share for New Coke had dwindled to only 3% by 1986. In 1992 the
company renamed the product "Coke II" (not to be confused with
"Coke C2", a reduced-sugar
cola launched by Coca-Cola in 2004). However, sales falloff caused a
severe cutback in distribution. By 1998, it was sold in only a few places
in the Midwestern United States.

Internationally,
sales of Coke vary from country to country, although it is the dominant
soft drink in virtually every country it is sold. Due to its symbolic
association with the United States, Coca-Cola has been a target of
anti-Americanism in the Middle East. One such instance in 2000 saw an
erroneous claim that the Coca-Cola label contained anti-Islamic phrases in
Arabic when viewed in a certain way. The Coca-Cola Company claimed sales
dropped 10 to 15% in Egypt
after the rumour began spreading in 2000, even though the Grand Mufti of
Egypt declared that the trademarked script logo "does not injure
Islam or Muslims". United States foreign policy also served as a
focal point for boycotts of Coca-Cola due to its perceived associations
with America. Alternatives to Coca-Cola, such as Mecca
Cola, began proliferating in Europe and the Middle East, ostensibly as
a way to combat "America's imperialism and Zionism by providing a
substitute for American goods and increasing the blockade of countries
boycotting American goods". The Coca-Cola Company stated that sales
had felt "some impact" as a result of the boycotts and launch of
alternative colas, but declined to elaborate.

Nevertheless
as of 2006, Coca-Cola is the best-selling soft drink in most countries.
However, Pepsi is often second
to Coke in terms of sales, and outsells Coca-Cola in some localities. Few
other soft drinks have posed a challenge to Coke's domination of the
global market, although some local brands such as Mecca Cola have made
gains against Coke in recent years. In Peru, Inca
Kola outsells Coca-Cola, although Corporación Inca Kola del Perú S.A.,
the company that formerly produced Inca Kola, was purchased by the
Coca-Cola Company in 1999. In Sweden,
despite Coca-Cola's strong holiday-oriented marketing efforts, Julmust
outsells Coca-Cola during the Christmas season, while in Scotland,
the locally produced Irn-Bru was more popular until 2005 when Coca-Cola
and Diet Coke began to outpace its sales.

A
Coca-Cola employee and two other people were arrested on July 6, 2006 and
charged with trying to sell "highly classified" information to
the soft drink maker's competitor, PepsiCo for $1.5 million. The recipe
for Coca-Cola Classic, perhaps the company's most closely guarded secret,
was never in jeopardy. Instead, the information was related to a new
beverage in development. Coca-Cola executives verified that the documents
were valid and proprietary. At least one glass vial containing a sample of
a new drink was offered for sale, court documents said. The conspiracy was
revealed by PepsiCo, which notified the authorities when they were
approached by the conspirators.

Production

Coca-Cola
formula

As
a publicity marketing strategy started by Ernest Woodruff, the company
presents the formula of Coca-Cola as one of the most closely held trade
secrets in modern business that only a few employees know or have access
to. In particular, the secret ingredient "7X" has long been
touted an integral component of Coca Cola's formula though it has never
been established what, if anything, the "X" refers to. It has
been stated that Coca-Cola had employees mix the drink by numbers assigned
to specific ingredients rather than by name, to avoid the possibility of
employees reverse-engineering the recipe. However, experienced perfumers
and food scientists — today aided by modern analytical methods — can
easily identify the composition of food products, a fact that is further
supported by the many cola flavorings and competing soft drinks like
Pepsi.

Franchised
production model

The
actual production and distribution of Coca-Cola follows a franchising
model. The Coca-Cola Company only produces a syrup concentrate, which it
sells to various bottlers throughout the world who hold Coca-Cola
franchises for one or more geographical areas. The bottlers produce the
final drink by mixing the syrup with filtered water and sugar (or
artificial sweeteners) and fill it into cans and bottles, which the
bottlers then sell and distribute to retail stores, vending machines,
restaurants and food service distributors. The bottlers are normally also
responsible for all advertisement and other sales initiatives within their
areas.

The
Coca-Cola Company owns minority shares in some of its largest franchisees,
like Coca-Cola Enterprises, Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company (CCHBC)
and Coca-Cola FEMSA, but fully independent bottlers produce almost half of
the volume sold in the world.

As
the bottler adds sugar and sweeteners, the sweetness of the drink is said
to differ in various parts of the world, in order to cater for local
taste.

Bottle
and logo design

The
famous Coca-Cola logotype is said to have largely been created by John
Pemberton's business partner, Frank Mason Robinson, in 1885. It was
Robinson who came up with the name, and he also chose the logo’s
distinctive cursive script. The typeface used, known as Spencerian script,
was developed in the mid 19th century and was the dominant form of formal
handwriting in the United States during that period.

The
equally famous Coca-Cola bottle, called the "Contour bottle"
within the company, but known to some as the "hobble skirt"
bottle, was created in 1915 by a Swedish former glassblower, Alexander
Samuelson, who had emigrated to the US in the 1880's and was employed as a
manager at The Root Glass Company in Terre Haute, Indiana, one of
Coca-Cola's bottle suppliers. According to the Coca-Cola Company,
Samuelson took time to ponder a possible new design for the bottle after
production at his plant was shut down due to a heat wave. Inspired, he
considered the possibility of basing a new design on the kola nut or coca
leaf, two of the drink's flagship ingredients. He sent an employee to
research the shape of the two objects in question, but a misunderstanding
led to the man returning with sketches of the cacao pod — a crucial
ingredient in chocolate, but not
Coca-Cola. According to the company, it was this mistaken design that was
accepted and put into production.

Although
endorsed by the company, this version of events is not considered
authoritative by many who cite its implausibility as difficult to believe.
One alternative depiction has Raymond Loewy as the inventor of the unique
design, but although Loewy did serve as a designer of Coke cans and
bottles in later years, he was in the French Army in the year the bottle
was invented and did not migrate to the United States until 1919. Others
have attributed inspiration for the design not to the cacao pod, but to a
Victorian hooped dress.

Specially
designed Christmas labels featuring Santa Claus

give
a seasonal twist to these Coca-Cola bottles

Advertising

Coca-Cola's
advertising has had a significant impact on American culture, and is
frequently credited with the "invention" of the modern image of Santa
Claus as an old man in red-and-white garments; however, while the
company did in fact start promoting this image in the 1930s in its winter
advertising campaigns, it was already common before that. In the 1970s, a
song from a Coca-Cola commercial called "I'd Like to Teach the World
to Sing", produced by Billy Davis, became a popular hit single, but
there is no evidence that it did anything to increase sales of the soft
drink. Coke's advertising has been rather pervasive, as one of Woodruff's
stated goals was to ensure that everyone on Earth drank Coca-Cola as their
preferred beverage. Advertising for Coke is now almost ubiquitous,
especially in southern areas of North America, such as Atlanta, where Coke
was invented.

Coca-Cola
has gone through a number of different advertising slogans in its long
history, including "The pause that refreshes", "I'd like to
buy the world a Coke", "The Real Thing" and "Coke is
it".

As
a result of extensive campaigns in the early 20th century, the Coca-Cola
drink has a high degree of identification with the United States itself,
being considered an "American brand" or to a small extent as
representing America (compare Mickey Mouse). By 1948, it was reported that
when non-Americans thought of democracy — a trait associated with the
United States — they thought of Coca-Cola.

Starting
in 1975, Pepsi-Cola ran a
series of television advertisements showing people participating in taste
tests in which they expressed a preference for Pepsi over Coke. Coca-Cola
ran ads to combat Pepsi's ads in an incident sometimes referred to as the cola
wars; one of Coke's ads compared the so-called Pepsi challenge to two chimpanzees
deciding which tennis
ball was furrier.

The
Coca-Cola has a long history of sports marketing relationships, which over
the years have included several major sports leagues both in the United
States and internationally. Two such notable instances are Coca-Cola's
sponsorship of the Olympic
games, with Coke being the first-ever sponsor of an Olympic game at
the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam,
and also Coca-Cola's sponsorship of FIFA,
which organises football tournaments such as the FIFA
World Cup.

Urban
legends and unusual uses

The
numerous urban legends about Coca-Cola have led the Urban Legends
Reference Pages to devote a whole section of their site to "Cokelore".
Coca-Cola has in particular been the target of urban legends decrying the
drink for its supposedly copious amounts of acid (its pH value of 2.5 is
midway between vinegar and gastric acid), or the
"life-threatening" effects of its carbonated
water. These urban legends usually take the form of "fun
facts" — for example, "highway troopers use Coke to clean
blood from highways after accidents," "somebody once died in a
Coke-drinking competition," or "Coke can dissolve a tooth
overnight." All of these claims are false. (While highway troopers do
not use Coca-Cola for this purpose, the television program MythBusters
showed that Coca-Cola could be used as a blood cleaning agent.) Claims of
Coca-Cola's unique tooth dissolving properties have been debunked as urban
legend. Coca-Cola was also once believed to have been a possible form of
birth control due to this allegedly high acidity level being able to
supposedly 'kill sperm'.

Camel
drinks a Coke

One
unusual use for Coke is as a rust-control substance—the phosphoric acid
in Coke converts iron oxide to iron phosphate, and as such can be used as
an initial treatment for corroded iron and steel objects being renovated,
etc. The acid can be used to anodize titanium according to various
websites. Corroded battery terminals on cars are often corrected through
the use of Coca-Cola.

According
to popular belief, the coca leaf extract cocaine was once added to
Coca-Cola, per se. Because cocaine is naturally present in untreated coca
leaves, small amounts of cocaine were also present in the beverage.
Today's Coca-Cola uses "spent" coca leaves, those that have been
through a cocaine extraction process, to flavor the beverage. Since this
process cannot extract the cocaine alkaloids at a molecular level, the
drink still contains trace amounts of the stimulant. The United States DEA
oversees the importation of coca for Coca-Cola, and later sale of the
extracted cocaine to the drug industry where it is used in the creation of
many of the common drugs whose names end in "-caine" (such as
Procaine and Lidocaine).

Criticism
of Coca-Cola

The
Coca-Cola Company has been criticised for the allegedly adverse health
effects of its flagship product. However, a common criticism of Coke based
on its allegedly toxic acidity levels has been found to be baseless by
most researchers; lawsuits based on these criticisms have been dismissed
by several American courts for this reason.

Most
nutritionists advise that Coca-Cola and other soft drinks can be harmful
if consumed excessively, particularly to young children whose soft drink
consumption competes with, rather than complements, a balanced diet.
Studies have shown that regular soft drink users have a lower intake of
calcium (which can contribute to osteoporosis), magnesium, ascorbic
acid, riboflavin, and vitamin A. The drink has also aroused criticism
for its use of caffeine, an
addictive substance.

Although
numerous court cases have been filed against The Coca-Cola Company since
the 1920s, alleging that the acidity of the drink is dangerous, no
evidence corroborating this claim has been found. In some of these cases,
evidence has been presented that claimed Coca-Cola is no more harmful than
comparable soft drinks or acidic fruit juices like apple juice. Under
normal conditions, scientific evidence indicates Coca-Cola's acidity
causes no immediate harm.

Like
most other colas, Coca-Cola contains phosphoric
acid. One study has shown that this hastens bone loss, contributing to
illnesses such as osteoporosis.

There
is also some concern regarding the usage of high fructose corn syrup in
the production of Coca-Cola. Since the late-1980s in the U.S., Coke has
been made with high
fructose corn syrup, instead of sugar glucose or fructose, to reduce
costs. This has come under criticism because of concerns that the corn
used to produce corn syrup may come from genetically altered plants. Some
nutritionists also caution against consumption of high fructose corn syrup
because of possible links to obesity and diabetes.

In
India, there exists a major controversy concerning pesticides and other
harmful chemicals in bottled products including Coca-Cola. In 2003, the
Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a non-governmental organisation
in New Delhi, said aerated waters produced by soft drinks manufacturers in
India, including multinational giants Pepsico and Coca-Cola, contained
toxins including lindane, DDT, malathion and chlorpyrifos — pesticides
that can contribute to cancer and a breakdown of the immune system. Tested
products included Coke, Pepsi, and several other soft drinks, many
produced by The Coca-Cola Company. CSE found that the Indian produced
Pepsi's soft drink products had 36 times the level of pesticide residues
permitted under European Union regulations; Coca Cola's 30 times. CSE said
it had tested the same products in the US and found no such residues.
After the pesticide allegations were made in 2003, Coca-Cola sales
declined by 15%. In 2004, an Indian parliamentary committee backed up
CSE's findings, and a government-appointed committee was tasked with
developing the world's first pesticide standards for soft drinks. The
Coca-Cola Company has responded that its plants filter water to remove
potential contaminants and that its products are tested for pesticides and
must meet minimum health standards before they are distributed.

The
Coca-Cola Company has also been accused of human rights violations
including; use of paramilitaries in Colombia, mistreatment of unionised
employees and taking the groundwater required by farmers in India.
The Coca-Cola Company disputes these claims.

Please
note:
For the avoidance of doubt, neither Max Energy
Ltd, the Solar Navigator project nor Solar Cola
Ltd is in any way connected with any Coca Cola
company. Nor is there any association between
Coca Cola and any project mentioned on this
website, unless specifically stated.

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